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I don't know a lot about Neil deGrasse Tyson. Given the few blurbs I've seen and read, I've generally thought him to be a pseudo-scientist who parrots facile opinions on religious questions to the sound of applause from secular ideologues who surround themselves with teachers who teach "what their itching ears want to hear."

As it turns out, Mr. Tyson is actually a highly credentialed scientist who parrots facile opinions on religious questions, and garners all the more applause because of his degrees from Harvard and Columbia. Like so many, Mr. (that is, Dr.) Tyson illustrates that disturbingly vast chasm between intelligence and wisdom. If you doubt me, just watch this interview with Larry King.

Notice the air of confidence and scholarly authority that exudes as he completely misses the point of the question by propounding an answer most high school sophomores could give. In response to the question, "What do you think happens when we die?”, Tyson explains the "unassailable" fact that our bodies will no longer produce heat by burning calories, and that bodies in caskets feel cold because they're room temperature and live bodies are warm. Might such insights diminish the prestige of the Ivy League?

Apparently, in all his extensive scientific studies, Mr. Tyson has had little exposure to ways of thinking which contrast that of his own cultural bubble (ironically, a characteristic usually associated with uneducated people from small towns). If he had, maybe he would be familiar with the ancient Greek understanding of the two different kinds of life: "bios" - biological or biographical life, which basically covers the raw mechanics and chronology of our bodies and the timelines of our lives--and "zoe" - the spiritual life, that which animates us and constitutes our personality and convictions. Zoe is the life of the soul. In the interview, Tyson is asked about zoe and answers by explaining bios. This is very dumb.

But because we are zoe and have bios (That is, we are souls and have bodies) he cannot get away from spiritual reality, and so in the midst of his explanation that the process of decay in the physical body is all that needs to be understood about death, he gets all superstitious and starts talking about his moral obligation to be buried instead of cremated so that the "energy content" of his body which he assembled by "consuming the flora and fauna of this earth" will go back to the earth and complete the cycle of life, as if we all have some kind of responsibility to the cycle of life. He says this is better because in cremation the energy of a body is released into the atmosphere were it's "of no use to anybody." I guess he's never stopped to ask the question, if all we need to know is reducible to biology and physics, from where do we get the idea that we're supposed to be of any "use to anybody"?

Then he really whips up the supernatural fervor by talking about how the knowledge of death creates the focus that spurs him toward an "urgency of accomplishment" and the "need to express love." Certainly he is smart enough to see that unguided cellular conglomerations cannot give any moral or emotional obligation to accomplish anything or to express love, and if they can then the meaningfulness of accomplishment and love is an illusion.

Also, he begins by arguing that we have no conscience existence after death and then says he doesn't fear death but rather fears "living a life where [he] could've accomplished something but didn't"--apparently unaware of the contradiction that one would have to have a conscience existence to know that he could've accomplished something but didn't.

All this is bad, but the stream of contradictions continues. He says he wants on his tombstone the quote, "Be ashamed to die until you have scored some victory for humanity.” Ashamed? Apparently, he has not taken time to consider the real experience of shame. Shame is an inherently personal thing. In addition to the consciousness needed to experience it, shame is something that happens among people. The one who feels ashamed feels the shame toward another person or group to whom he is accountable. We don’t feel shame when a machine malfunctions, but we do feel it acutely when we disappoint another person. (By the way, when we are ashamed of something no other human person knows about, this is because we know intuitively that we have disappointed The Person to whom all of us are accountable). If life at its most basic level is only matter, since matter, by definition, cannot be a person, then experiences like shame and guilt would have to be illusions. To add to this, Mr. Tyson says he should be ashamed if he dies without scoring a victory for humanity. I wonder where he gets the idea that humanity is supposed to be victorious?

There's a whole other line of contradictions in his talk about religious believers being "embedded in belief systems" (which, of course, secular scientists are not), and the argument that disagreement among people of different religions implies that all religious belief is a fraud (in contrast to secular scientists who never disagree about anything). But these will have to wait until another day.

With this much of Mr. Tyson's illumination, we can see that clear thinking and good sense do not necessarily accompany higher education. Remember, one lesson to gain from "The Emperor's New Clothes" is not that the emperor isn't really an emperor, but that emperors are often inferior to little boys in their ability to see what's truly real.

Jan Chamberlin, now former member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, has gotten a lot of attention for her decision to resign from the choir rather than sing at Trump’s inauguration. This would be understandable. Trump has said and done plenty that’s worthy of protest. The only person in recent presidential politics with a worse character would be Hillary Clinton. (One would hope a Clinton inauguration would cause some to protest as well).

Ms. Chamberlin’s protest would be understandable and even commendable if only she weren’t Mormon. Yes, Trump is an egotistical, womanizer with a weather vane for a moral compass, but the Mormon (LDS) Church, for which the Tabernacle Choir is a tremendously valuable public relations tool, was founded by a man who did far worse than Trump, and claimed to have done it all in the name of God.

In case you’re not familiar, here are a few of the well-documented exploits of Joseph Smith:

He claimed that God revealed to him that it would be acceptable for men to have multiple wives as long as a man’s first wife gave consent, and as long as those he marries are “virgins, and have vowed to no other man.” (D&C 132:61) Smith then proceeded to marry over 30 women, 11 of whom had living husbands at the time of his marriage to them.

He married a mother daughter pair, Patty and Sylvia Sessions, and a few pairs of sisters as well.

He had already taken over 20 wives when he publicly made this statement in 1844:”...What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one. I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers." (History of the Church, vol 6, p. 411)

This is the one about whom the Tabernacle Choir sings "Praise to the Man."

​Many Mormons try to side step the polygamy problem by claiming Smith's marriages were not consummated, but this denies the explicit reasoning for the commandment supposedly given by God, that a man's wives “are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth.” (D&C 132:63)

To add to this, when it comes to the issue of racism, for which Trump has been so widely criticized, consider what Smith's successor, Brigham Young, (who definitely consummated his polygamous marriages; he fathered over 50 children) said about the origin of black people:

"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind...Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin." ( Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 290)

Brigham Young was also certain that God is not pleased with whites and blacks marrying each other, and never​will be:

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixeshis blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 10, pg. 110)

So, why has Ms. Chamberlin never protested this?

The Washington Times quotes her as saying, “I believe hereafter our message will not be believed by many that have loved us and adored what we have stood for.” In light of the teachings and the behavior of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, no one should believe their message to begin with.”

Of course, every religious group has its fair share of leaders who have said and done stupid things. But in the LDS Church, Smith, Young, and all their successors are believed to be the mouthpieces of God who were sent as a Divine remedy for the abominable doctrines taught by Catholic and Protestant Christians.

This stunning inconsistency highlights the way in which culture and heritage can work like moral anesthesia. If Ms. Chamberlin is anything like most Mormons (especially those who live in Utah), then likely all of her most important family, friendship, and work relations are intertwined with Mormonism in some way or another, and if she were born into an LDS family this would deepen the roots of allegiance all the more. This brings to mind a joke about the ubiquity of pizza; all you need to get into the most clandestine government offices is a Domino’s shirt and pizza box. Likewise, all you need to get someone to venerate the most despicable people and the most perverse behaviors is to wrap it all in a cloak of cultural and family heritage. Nostalgia can be worse than heroin.

My conviction on this comes from experience. I was born and raised in the Deep South, and there a many well-meaning, but horribly misguided Southerners who have a lot to say about “heritage.” There’s plenty about Southern culture to love, but I’m for the Truth before I’m for the South.

With this in mind, Ms. Chamberlin would do well to focus her indignation a little closer to home, and we would all do well to turn our attention from our heritage to the One before whom we will give an account of where and why we placed our deepest allegiences.